April 12, 2003

Mock objects

If you've been using Extreme Programming (XP) or test-driven development, you probably know how beneficial it is to have unit tests for most of your code. But often times you run into problems testing a method that relies on an external entity such as an output stream to a network connection. You can still test these methods easily, as the authors of the Pragmatic Programmer point out in this excellent introductory article to Mock Objects. You might also want to check out mockobjects.com for more info.